The field of creating successful and sustainable web-portals has become exponentially more competitive and difficult by each passing month as thousands of new web-based business ideas are launched each week. Truly useful services and ideas are becoming increasingly difficult to find and, furthermore, to sustain in such a competitive environment. Typically such portals include search engines, travel services, lifestyle content providers, news services, retailers, and the like whose business revolves around a pure software and service model. Very few of these commercial web-sites involve hardware, and none are designed to standardize the deployment and control of every single piece of home or vehicle-based automation and sensor hardware now in existence or that will be coming into existence produced by any manufacturer and based upon any standard.
There are only very few web sites that allow a consumer to control a very limited number of home automation devices, and such web-sites, which are not built entirely from scratch by those few capable consumers who are skilled enough in the art to do so on their own, simply exist in order to assist in the sales of their specific and proprietary home automation devices.
The present invention provides a way for consumers to extend the functionality of new and existing home automation devices and systems, and provides a common look and feel to all these such disparate devices and systems, allowing consumers with very little skill in the art to easily compare, choose, purchase and control such automation devices with a single and very accessible user experience.
In embodiments of the new invention, once a user learns how to program a home watering system using the web site's interface, that same user will be able to program a VCR in almost exactly the same syntax and fashion. The web site provided in the preferred embodiment of the new invention employs a natural-language programming interface that is driven by limited and non-confusing selections from drop down menus that will reconfigure themselves based upon the user's previous drop down menu selections. Other features to the preferred embodiment of this web site include a Virtual Device Applications Builder, which allows the user to input his desired home automation goals, and will then allow him to manipulate, test and view the resulting system in exactly the same way he would a real system. Once the user is satisfied with the virtual configuration of his devices, the web-site provides a laundry list of specific hardware choices, from any and all available devices and manufacturers, and allows the user to purchase this list of items on-line. Moreover, once purchased, the web instructs the user in the configuration and installation of the devices, and ultimately allows the user to control this system via the Internet on this preferred embodiment of the web site. This web site additionally offers objective third-party editorial content evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of competing devices and standards that the users of the site could use in making their selection of systems and hardware.
The opportunity for this invention arise from a combination of the rapid rise and deployment of the Internet's infrastructure in general, and specifically that the home automation market, in the inventor's opinion, is much too fragmented for any single hardware manufacturer to dominate and become the de facto standard in the home automation market. The field of home sensor/actuator-controlled home systems has become more complex and sophisticated as electronic hardware also becomes more complex and sophisticated.
Systems provided for home installation and use include alarm systems, watering systems, lighting systems, heating and air conditioning systems, pool systems, and so on. Of these systems, there are varying degrees of automation and programmability features that are built in to each separate system in the current state of the art, and in a variety of wiring, communication, and control standards and protocols. For example, an automated and programmable watering system may have an electronic control box that is wired to each distributed actuator that controls distributed watering components. Such a box may use a programmable timer function to control how often and what areas covered by the physical components of the system will be watered. A client or user will typically set-up each part of the system to actuate at specific times for a specific length of time as is well known in the art.
The above example represents an actuator-control system. In some more advanced watering systems, a rain sensor may be provided and integrated to such a system so that watering may be temporarily discontinued or reduced such as during periods of extended rain. The rain sensor, picking up precipitation, would override the actuator and shut down watering until the next timed watering interval.
An example of a sensor-control system would be an alarm system. An alarm system responds to signals from sensors distributed within an area the system is designed to protect. Types of sensor capability used in an alarm system may vary widely from system to system. Some use photoelectric beams. Others use laser technology. Still others use movement and/or audio detectors or physical circuits, which when broken, trigger the alarm. There are many methods as is well understood by the skilled artisan.
In typical prior art implementation, a sensor and/or actuator-control system of the types described above are made available to consumers by usually separate enterprises, which provide all of the hardware and wiring necessary for function of such systems. Each system will have a control box provided and adapted to allow a home or business owner to program and implement any functions provided by the system. If a user has more than one type of system installed then he or she will have more than one control box to program and use. In typical prior art systems each control box must be programmed on-site and changed on-site if different settings are desired.
More recently, with the advent of powerful home computers, many companies that provide home automated systems have provided means including software, whereby a user may program a system from his or her personal home computer. In this way, a user is not required to physically interface with a control box in order to make changes to a system. In these types of systems a cable, such as a serial cable, is provided from a control box to a PC. By utilizing a software program, a user may send commands to the control box (adapted to receive serial commands) associated with a system such that programming and monitoring may be conducted from the PC.
With the advent of the well-known Internet network, some companies have provided a means to control home systems from a remote computer using the Internet as a conduit, and a home computer as a host. In this way a user may make changes and control home-system function from the office or from a mobile computer such as a Laptop computer. In some cases, this is accomplished through a company hosted web-site, which typically only supports this proprietary hardware standard and is intended to help increase sales of the hardware, but is not intended to be a web-portal through which a user can control and monitor home systems. In other cases, the method used is direct computer-to-computer linking.
Although companies that provide home automation systems have been moving toward remote access for controlling such systems, such companies typically provide only access to proprietary system components, which allow control to only those systems set-up for a user by the company. For example, if a user has a remote-access alarm system, and a remote-access heating and air conditioning system, then there will be two separate methods and apparatus for enabling control and monitoring of such systems.
In a more recent development, known in the art and to the inventor, some companies, realizing the potential for attracting business from Internet users, have developed computerized home systems that may be customized for individuals having a variety of home automation needs. For example, a user may desire a remote access system by which he or she can control an air conditioning and heating system, an alarm system, a watering system, and a lighting system, all from a single interface. Such systems are termed “smart home systems” to those who are familiar with this newer art.
The above-described smart systems require a powerful computer control station having ports and cables leading to distributed components of each integrated component system. Each separate component system such as a watering system, a heating/air system, an alarm system, a door locking/unlocking system, and so on, must be integrated with components that are capable of communicating with a central computer unit by way of cable. Such systems are quite expensive and therefore usually are above the affordable range of an average homeowner. Such smart systems are generally installed when new homes are being built, and are advertised as features of such homes. Because of extensive cabling, equipment requirements and labor needed to cosmetically install such smart systems in a home, such systems are not practical to an average homeowner.
A system known to the inventor and taught in an application identified under the Cross-Reference section above provides remote controllability for automated systems and appliances that may be distributed throughout a subscriber's home and or business. Control units built into or connected to each system and appliance to be controlled have each a microcontroller, system memory, I/O and wiring interface to individual ones of the systems and appliances, and an RF section for communication with a base station at the home or business. The base station is Internet-access-capable and has an RF section to communicate with the control units. In this system a subscriber can monitor and control the home or business systems and appliances from any Internet-capable device in any location. Functions entered in a web page interface by a subscriber are sent to the appropriate base station and thence to the appropriate control unit. In a further embodiment a subscriber can create a virtual system, then purchase parts through the service and rely on the service to provide installation and debugging aid, after which the newly-installed system may be accessed through the Internet.
RF communication provides a flexible method of communication between deployed devices wired to systems or appliances distributed in a user's home or business and a centralized base-station. It has occurred to the inventor, that while RF technology is a logical choice for implementation in the above-described system, typical RF implementation is accompanied by several drawbacks. For example an RF-based network must be regulated. Interference range must be calculated, and a degree of difficulty exists with implementation and tuning of a plurality of RF modules in a production environment. Certain consortium-launched RF standards such as Bluetooth or HomeRF may help to solve certain technical problems, however, further innovation is needed to provide an effective, low-cost, communication system and protocol.
The system mentioned above as taught in a cross-referenced application has a RF communication module for enabling RF data communication in a wireless communication system. The communication module comprises a transmitter/receive circuitry for transmitting and receiving data, a RF chipset and microcontroller for enabling and controlling various functions of the RF communication module, an antennae circuitry for enabling function of the transmitter/receive circuitry and a data port for enabling serial communication between the RF module and connected components of a host device. In this system, the RF module is characterized in that it may function, in certain aspects, as a slave module or a controlling module dependent on the host device.
It has occurred to the inventor that a Home Automation Control (HAC) system with extensible control capability that is WEB-based, wherein a central server allows patrons to configure, purchase, test, and monitor their systems from remote locations may be enhanced even further to allow patrons to control certain aspects of their systems from more than just one WEB interface. A user with several home pages that spends a significant amount of time on the Internet, for example, may desire to make a change in his or her HAC setting panel without having to access a central server at one address in order to initiate settings changes or to check on system status.
Therefore, what is clearly needed is a distributable status-report and control interface that may be invoked and executed from any number of a patron's home pages or subscribed portals. Such a distributed interface would enable a user to make alterations to his or her HAC system while actively engaged in interaction with any one of a number of frequently visited locations on the network.